Peanut Butter Banana Bread is a super easy quick bread that your family will love. For even more diverse flavor add walnuts, pecans or chocolate chips. This delectable bread is moist, quick to fix and the flavor combination is amazing.

My version of Red Beans and Rice is all cooked up in one big pot. This mouthwatering combination of onions, peppers, celery, andouille sausage, red beans, rice and a perfect blend of spices is a super hearty flavor-packed meal.

This made-from-scratch creamed spinach is one of my favorite sides. Serve it over rice, noodles, baked potatoes, grits or just by itself. This recipe calls for fresh spinach, onions and garlic in an easy-to-make cream sauce that starts with a roux.

Peanut Butter Banana Bread is a super easy quick bread that your family will love. For even more diverse flavor add walnuts, pecans or chocolate chips. This delectable bread is moist, quick to fix and the flavor combination is amazing.

My version of Red Beans and Rice is all cooked up in one big pot. This mouthwatering combination of onions, peppers, celery, andouille sausage, red beans, rice and a perfect blend of spices is a super hearty flavor-packed meal.

This made-from-scratch creamed spinach is one of my favorite sides. Serve it over rice, noodles, baked potatoes, grits or just by itself. This recipe calls for fresh spinach, onions and garlic in an easy-to-make cream sauce that starts with a roux.

Once upon a time, there was a child named … Zee. Zee was a middle child in a family of busy adults, three pesky siblings, two hamsters and a lazy dog that thinks it’s a fat cat, so they call him Whiskers.

One hot summer day, Zee walked into the kitchen, sat on a chair, and sighed a very long sigh. He rested his foot on Whiskers, who barely budged.

“Mom, I’m bored.”

“Bored?”

“There’s nothing to do! It’s too hot to play outside, and I already played with all my toys yesterday. See, even Whiskers is bored.” Zee pouted, and started to almost whine.

“Honey, Whiskers always looks like that.” Whiskers was too comfortable in his favorite position to protest, much less attempt to meow.

“Now, Zee, remember: if you pick one that needs to be baked, you’ll have to be extra careful around the hot oven, okay sweetie?”

“Oh. Okay. Do you have something we can make outside the oven? Because Metsy might come into the kitchen and get burned.” Zee was always looking out for his younger sister, even though she was sometimes a punk, and clearly, Mom’s warnings about touching a hot stove made a deep impression on him.

“Well, that’s very nice of you, Zee. It makes me happy to see you taking good care of your sister. And yes, we have more recipes to choose from that don’t have to be baked in the oven.”

“Mom, those sound really good. What else? What else can we make? What about about something nice and cold? Something with ice cream? And peanut butter?” Zee was getting excited, and even Whiskers stirred. No, wait. He was just shifting positions. False alarm.

“Oh, we can definitely do something like that too. It’ll be wonderful in such a hot day as today.” Zee was still too excited to notice that Mom suddenly started constructing sentences as if she were in the late 1800s.

“Mom, those are going to be yummy! I can’t wait to make these and then eat them right away!”

“Well, Zee, usually when working with frozen ingredients, you have to wait a bit and let them thaw, then sometimes, you have to wait again after making them to let them freeze. We can make these, and then have them after dinner. And we can tell everyone that you made dessert!”

Zee liked that idea. As a middle child, the thought of everyone knowing that he made dessert made him very happy. But the thought of waiting until after dinner made him not-so-happy, which, of course, Mom sensed. Because moms are like that.

“Or, we can make dessert, but also make something really simple to snack on right now. How does that sound?”

Zee beamed. Mom sure was full of great ideas today. “How about something with fruit?” Zee knew Mom would be pleased with the suggestion.

“Zee, what a wonderful idea! And you know what, I think I just might have the recipe for us to try.”

So Zee and Mom spent their afternoon making that night’s dessert, and a nice little snack as a reward for all their hard work. Zee was so happy after everyone at the dinner table congratulated him on his beautiful dessert, and he vowed that someday, when he was old enough to learn how to type, he might consider starting a food blog.

Kellyon 7.23.2010

Great story! Love that it gives us something to read rather than the usual food porn posts. And while I love and have bookmarked almost all of those, they are basically just lists, so this gives us a proper post! Yayy!

Audreyon 7.22.2010

I love sweets. What’s better than a sweet, a sweet that you can easily shove in your mouth in one tasty bite!

I loved this!! Thanks for bringing a smile to my face and all those recipes that I will try with my granddaughter. Bless her heart, she and I are each a middle child. We understand each other!!

Ruthieon 7.22.2010

Awesome. My kids will LOVE these! — I’d be super excited to see a picnic theme on the blog! We’ve been picnicking every weekend, and I gotta say, sammies are good and all, but I’d love some more creative ideas that are pretty easy and portable and not so messy!

i let him form whatever he wants….recently it was letters of the alphabet, we make lots of smoothies with the bullet mixer thing, gnocchi with leftover mashed potatoes and lemonade….he loves to shake it up in the mason jars and zesting lemons is fun too!!!

cooking with my kid is a daily occurrence….unless he is to busy playing to be bothered!